The Thirteenth Amendment was ratified by the United States in 1865.
Congress passed the amendment on January 31, 1865, and the required number of states ratified it by December 6, 1865. It abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States, except as punishment for a crime after conviction.
President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, but that wartime measure applied mainly to areas in rebellion and did not permanently change the Constitution. The Thirteenth Amendment made abolition national and constitutional. It was followed by the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 and the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870.